I’ve done more than a lot of self reflection on how I treat myself differently from anyone else. And in a lot of ways it’s given me permission to give myself gr

I’ve done more than a lot of self reflection on how I treat myself differently from anyone else. And in a lot of ways it’s given me permission to give myself grace I wouldn’t have in the past. I very much agree with the author on how important it is, and I hope anyone reading benefits from that message, and carries it with them to share it with the people they care about who may also be too hard on themselves. I also hope this next part won’t undermine all of that. In all of my reflection on the subject, the thing that always comes back to my focus is that a core part of how I forgive or excuse others’ faults and mistakes is that I have limited insight into their whole picture. If someone is failing me or themselves or others, I can imagine countless complicating factors that might be making it harder for them to do better, even if it’s not out in the open. When I’m failing myself or others, I don’t have total insight into the contributing factors but I have a much fuller view. I have the ability to scrutinize every single thing that happens in my waking hours that didn’t escape my attention, and to revisit much of what did. And so I have much more detail to scrutinize. Gratefully I’ve learned a lot in the process about how to scrutinize myself more kindly (and that’s helped when I choose or need to scrutinize others too). But it’s unavoidable to me that I will hold myself to a higher standard than anyone else, because I have far fewer unknowns to mitigate my own judgment.